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SUKKUR, Sept 29: Six to eight hours load-shedding has again been started in Sukkur and other parts of the interior of Sindh since Tuesday night.
When contacted, the executive engineer, Hesco, Sukkur, Zafar Nadeem, claimed that load-shedding of 100 mega watts was being observed because the Guddu thermal power station had developed a fault. He said the load shedding was likely to end in a couple of days.
However, an official of the power station said Hesco authorities were not telling the truth because no fault had occurred in the power station. He added that the power station was producing electricity to its capacity. He said the Hesco officials were observing load shedding to cover line losses.
WATER ROTATION: The chief engineer of the Sukkur Barrage, Noor Mohammad Shah, has announced a water rotation programme for off-taking canals of the Sukkur Barrage in the wake of a chronic shortage of water in the Indus river.
All these canals, the Nara Canal, Rohri Canal, Khairpur East and West canals, are situated on the left side of the barrage. According to the programme, the Nara Canal and Khairpur West Canal would be closed on Oct 1 and reopened on Oct 16 while the Rohri Canal and the Khairpur East Canal would remain closed from Oct 16 to 31.
No canal on the right pocket of the barrage has been put on the water rotation. It may be mentioned that a high-level meeting of the Sindh Abadgar Board was held in Hyderabad some 10 days back under the chairmanship of Sindh irrigation minister Nadir Akmal Leghari.
It was decided in the meeting that the rice crop in Sindh's Shikarpur, Larkana, Jacobabad and Dadu districts and some part of Balochistan should be saved from total destruction by observing a rotation programme on the eastern canals of the barrage.
In these districts 85 per cent land comes under the rice cultivation. The canals which feed these districts were already facing about 50 per cent water shortage, affecting the rice crop. The meeting decided to cut the water of Nara, Khairpur West, Khairpur East and Rohri canals to save Sindh's rice crop from total destruction.
RELEASE DEMANDED: Activists of the district chapter of the Sindh People's Students Federation observed a black day and staged a demonstration here on Wednesday against the imprisonment of Asif Ali Zardari.
Speaking on the occasion, leaders of the SPSF, Najeeb Domki and Naveed Soomro condemned the alleged atrocities of the government against the PPP. They said the party leader, Yousuf Raza Gillani, was awarded ten years' imprisonment on the charges of providing jobs to people.
They said the government had kept Asif Ali Zardari in jail for the last eight years while fake cases were being registered against PPP workers. They said the Thal canal and Kalabagh dam were anti-Sindh projects.
CLARIFICATION: Maulana Hanif Bandhani, the Khateeb of the Jamia Hari Mosque, New Goth, Sukkur, has said neither he belonged to any political or religious party nor he was attached to any banned organization.
In a statement issued here on Wednesday, he said the home ministry had named him as an activist of the Sipah-i-Sahaba which hold no ground. He said he was arrested on May 8, 2002 and kept in illegal detention and later released on June 29, 2002 after thorough investigation.
